FOR THE TIME being, Croatia will stay off the Slovenian red list of countries for which quarantine is mandatory, stated the Slovenian Minister of Health Tomaz Gantar.

So far, "there is no initiative to include Croatia on the red list," Tomaz Gantar stated at a press conference.

The decisions on including countries on the red list are not made hastily, and the epidemiologists who monitor the situation in neighboring countries are calling for a joint reaction, he added.

According to the Minister, Croatia was right to adopt new measures to curb the spread of coronavirus and to make the criteria for the entry from Serbia, BiH, and Montenegro stricter, seeing that these three countries are on the Slovenian red list.

Additional criteria

According to the Slovenian Institute of Public Health, Slovenia has had 12 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, and Croatia has had twice as many infections, so according to the applicable criteria, both countries are in the yellow epidemiological zone.

However, Gantar pointed out that in order to determine the safety of destinations, in addition to the number of newly infected people, additional criteria have been used in the last two weeks, including geographical proximity of the country, i.e., whether the country in question is a neighboring country with many Slovenian tourists or a distant country, which would make the risk of the infection spread quite lower.

The number of tested individuals relative to the number of inhabitants and the comparison of the epidemiological situation to the Slovenian situation are also taken into consideration when making the decision which countries to include on the red list.